Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/50—Network services
  • H04L67/56—Provisioning of proxy services
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L69/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass
  • H04L69/24—Negotiation of communication capabilities

Definitions

• the disclosure relates to techniques for network resource sharing, and in
• Communications networks are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, with the advent of sophisticated wireline and wireless technologies for providing fast data communications between terminals.
• Examples of such networks include personal area networks enabled by USB or Bluetooth, local area networks enabled by Ethernet or IEEE 802.11, and wide area networks including the Internet.
• Terminals on a network are commonly configured to share information and data with one another.
• resources such as Internet access bandwidth, computational bandwidth, and other terminal-specific capabilities may also be shared between terminals over a network.
• dynamic allocation and sharing of resources presents certain challenges.
• the owner of a resource (or the "owner terminal") must typically grant access to its local resources only on a limited basis, to avoid disrupting the owner terminal's internal operations.
• owner terminals may preclude resource sharing altogether, as there is no perceived benefit to a terminal from sharing its resources with other terminals. This arrangement is inefficient, however, as there may be a substantial amount of idle resources sitting on a network that may be advantageously utilized by other terminals.
• An aspect of the present disclosure provides an apparatus comprising: a processor; and at least one memory coupled to the processor, the at least one memory storing
• Another aspect of the present disclosure provides an apparatus comprising: a processor; and at least one memory coupled to the processor, the at least one memory storing instructions for causing the processor to implement a lease broker module configured to: determine terms on which a resource is available to be used by at least one remote terminal; advertise the terms to the at least one remote terminal; negotiate a service agreement with the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; enable the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; and arrange to be compensated by the at least one remote terminal based on the use of the resource.
• a lease broker module configured to: determine terms on which a resource is available to be used by at least one remote terminal; advertise the terms to the at least one remote terminal; negotiate a service agreement with the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; enable the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; and arrange to be compensated by the at least one remote terminal based on the use of the resource.
• Yet another aspect of the present disclosure provides a method comprising:
• determining a requirement set of an application module identifying at least one remote terminal having a resource to at least partially satisfy the requirement set of the application module; enabling the application module to use the resource of the at least one remote terminal according to a service agreement; and arranging for the at least one remote terminal to be compensated based on the use of the resource.
• Yet another aspect of the present disclosure provides a method comprising:
• determining terms on which a resource is available to be used by at least one remote terminal determining terms on which a resource is available to be used by at least one remote terminal; advertising the terms to the at least one remote terminal; negotiating a service agreement with the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; enabling the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; and arranging to be compensated by the at least one remote terminal based on the use of the resource.
• FIG 1 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a system operating according to the principles of the present disclosure.
• FIG 2 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a system for leasing network resources according to the present disclosure.
• FIG 3 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a procedure performed by the lease broker at the owner terminal shown in FIG 2.
• FIG 4 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a procedure performed by the user broker at the user terminal shown in FIG 2.
• FIG 5 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of an interaction between the lease broker and the user broker during the bidding process.
• FIG 6 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of specific operations that may be performed by a lease broker during the bid negotiation blocks and the resource usage blocks shown in FIG 5.
• FIG 7 illustrates an alternative exemplary embodiment of post-payment scheme that may be performed by the lease broker and the user broker to lease the resources of the owner terminal.
• FIG 8 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a system wherein an arbiter is provided.
• FIG 9 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a virtual data center according to the present disclosure.
• FIG 10 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a network traffic bandwidth leasing scheme according to the present disclosure.
• FIG 11 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a distributed computing scheme according to the present disclosure.
• FIG 12 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of an application / OS leasing scheme according to the present disclosure.
• FIG 13 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of an apparatus 250 for implementing either the owner terminal 210 or user terminal 220 described in FIG 2.
• FIG 1 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 100 of a system operating according to the principles of the present disclosure. Note the system 100 is shown for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to limit the scope of the present disclosure to any particular number or types of terminals shown.
• multiple terminals 120A, 120B, 120C, 120D are shown connected to a network 110.
• the terminals include personal computers 120A, 120B, a mobile phone 120C, and a mainframe computer 120D.
• the network 110 provides a communications platform over which the various terminals 120 can communicate with each other, and with other terminals (not shown) connected to the network.
• the network 110 may be the Internet, and information transfer from terminal to terminal may be accomplished using, e.g., TCP/IP.
• the network 110 may be a Bluetooth network, an Ethernet-based local area network (LAN), etc.
• Terminals may be connected to the network 110 using any network connectivity technologies known in the art, and may include, e.g., wired connections such as Ethernet networking or modem connections, and/or wireless connections such as supported by wireless standards such as W-CDMA, cdma2000, Bluetooth, etc.
• network connectivity technologies known in the art, and may include, e.g., wired connections such as Ethernet networking or modem connections, and/or wireless connections such as supported by wireless standards such as W-CDMA, cdma2000, Bluetooth, etc.
• any two terminals may also communicate directly with each other without necessarily traversing a "network.”
• two terminals may communicate wirelessly with each other using Bluetooth, or any other type of direct wired or wireless connection, and such two terminals may also implement the resource leasing techniques of the present disclosure.
• Such alternative exemplary embodiments are contemplated to be within the scope of the present disclosure.
• each of the terminals 120 A, 120B, 120C, 120D typically possesses a certain amount of available local resources for performing its computational and/or processing tasks.
• the personal computer 120A may process data using one or more CPU's locally provided within the personal computer 120A.
• the personal computer 120B may store data using a local hard disk storage medium provided within the personal computer 120B.
• the mobile phone 120C may perform, e.g., compression or decompression of video, using one or more processing engines located locally within the mobile phone 120C. In such applications, the processing and storage capability of each terminal is typically limited by the amount of local resources available at the terminal.
• a terminal it may be advantageous for a terminal to have access to additional processing or storage capability beyond what is locally available at the terminal.
• personal computer 120 A (the "user terminal") may exhaust its own computational resources
• personal computer 120B (the "owner terminal"), which is idle, may have the additional computational resources needed by personal computer 120 A.
• schemes for sharing resources between terminals are known in the art, such sharing is often impractical due to the lack of a general and flexible scheme for identifying available resources to be shared, as well as a system for equitably partitioning the resource usage amongst the different terminals.
• personal computer 120 A may benefit from the use of the computational resources of personal computer 120B, yet personal computer 120 A does not know that personal computer 120B has those resources, as personal computer 120B does not advertise its available resources.
• personal computer 120B may not be willing to lend its resources to personal computer 120A, as the two computers may be owned by two unrelated entities, and thus there is no perceived benefit to the owner of computer 120B from lending its resources to computer 120 A.
• FIG 2 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 200 of a system for leasing network resources according to the present disclosure.
• an owner terminal 210 receives a request from a user.
• FIG 2 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 200 of a system for leasing network resources according to the present disclosure.
• an owner terminal 210 receives a request from a user.
• FIG 2 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 200 of a system for leasing network resources according to the present disclosure.
• an owner terminal 210 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 200 of a system for leasing network resources according to the present disclosure.
• the owner terminal 210 owns a local resource 216 that is available to be shared with other users on the network 110.
• a lease broker 212 exchanges data 214 with the local resource 216, and also communicates with other terminals on the network 110.
• the lease broker 212 is responsible for determining parameters associated with the local resource 216 to be shared, such as the type of resource, the amount of the resource to be shared, and a time schedule according to which the resource may be shared.
• a time schedule may specify, e.g., a start time and a stop time over which the resource is available.
• the broker 212 may determine, e.g., that 2 MIPS (or million instructions per second) of the local resource 216 is available for lease starting from a start time up to a stop time.
• the lease broker 212 may advertise these parameters to other terminals on the network 110, and negotiate terms under which the local resource 216 may be leased to other terminals.
• the local resource 216 may include, but is not limited to, CPU capacity, storage capacity, Internet bandwidth, electrical power, etc. Note these examples are given for illustrative purposes only, and it is contemplated that any resource that can be shared with other users is within the scope of the present disclosure.
• a local application 226 is being executed.
• the application 226 may request to use additional resources beyond what is locally available at user terminal 220.
• the application 226 communicates its additional resource requirements to a user broker 222 via data transfer 224.
• the user broker 222 is responsible for determining parameters associated with the resource requirements of the application 226, identifying potential owner terminals on the network 110 having leasable resources, and negotiating acceptable terms under which the user terminal 220 may lease resources from the owner terminal or terminals, e.g., the local resources 216 from the owner terminal 210.
• the lease broker 212 may require payment.
• payment may include, but is not limited to, monetary currency, resource exchange, redeemable credits, etc. Note these examples of payment are given for illustrative purposes only, and it is contemplated that any form of value exchange is within the scope of the present disclosure.
• the resource 216 is shown as being locally available at the same device 210 on which the lease broker 212 is available (i.e., the resource 216 is a "local resource")
• the resource 216 and lease broker 212 generally need not be located on a single device.
• the lease broker 212 may be implemented on another device (not shown) separate from the device 210, and may handle the leasing of the resource 216 for the device 210 remotely, e.g., over the network 110.
• Such alternative exemplary embodiments are contemplated to be within the scope of the present disclosure.
• FIG 3 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 300 of a procedure performed by the lease broker 212 at the owner terminal 210 shown in FIG 2. Note FIG 3 is shown for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to limit the scope of the present disclosure to any particular procedure shown.
• the lease broker 212 searches for resources available at the owner terminal 210.
• the lease broker 212 may be configured to access a list of pre-identified resources at the owner terminal 210, and may query a software or hardware controller at the owner terminal 210 to determine whether such resources are currently available for lease.
• resources may include, e.g., available CPU computational bandwidth, network traffic bandwidth, data storage, etc., as previously mentioned.
• the lease broker 212 may identify whether the locally available resources may be shared with other terminals on the network with minimal impact to the local terminal 210. For example, even if the owner terminal 210 has data storage resources locally available as determined at block 310, sharing of the owner terminal's data storage resources may not be appropriate at the moment if, e.g., the owner terminal 210 is a mobile device running low on battery power.
• the lease broker 212 establishes the service level that can be offered.
• Service level parameters may include types of resources, amounts of resources that may be leased, etc.
• the owner terminal 210 may determine that given its available resources, it may serve as a traffic router, supporting up to 100 kilobits per second (kbps) of network traffic according to a certain time schedule.
• the owner terminal 210 may also determine that it may simultaneously serve as a computing node for a distributed architecture, supporting up to 2 MIPS of processing during a particular scheduled time.
• the service level parameters may further specify such parameters as availability, priority, etc.
• a service level agreement (or “service agreement”) may be formed between an owner terminal and the user terminal, e.g., according to the procedures as later described with reference to FIGs 5 and 6.
• An SLA may specify the particular service level parameters according to which a resource will be provided to the user terminal, and may specify, e.g., the types of resource to be offered, the amounts of the resources, guaranteed latency, etc.
• the SLA may also specify a particular time schedule according to which the resource will be offered.
• the SLA need not specify the particular time schedule according to which the resource will be offered, and such time schedule may be specified outside the scope of the SLA.
• the lease broker 212 establishes price levels corresponding to the service levels offered. For example, the lease broker 212 may request monetary
• the lease broker 212 may advertise the availability of its local resource 216 over the network 110.
• the information may be sent, e.g., via broadcast or unicast to its peers on the network 110.
• the lease broker 212 may respond to a request for capability message received from a user broker 222.
• the lease broker 212 waits to receive bids from user terminals.
• FIG 4 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 400 of a procedure performed by the user broker 222 at the user terminal 220 shown in FIG 2. Note FIG 4 is shown for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to limit the scope of the present disclosure to any particular procedure shown.
• the user broker 222 determines the resource requirements of the user terminal 220.
• the resource requirements may arise from one or more applications, such as application 226, running at the user terminal 220.
• the resource requirements may include, e.g., additional desired network traffic bandwidth, additional computational bandwidth, additional storage capacity, etc.
• the user broker 222 determines the currency type and price range that a user of the user terminal 220 is willing to pay to lease those additional resources from another terminal.
• the currency type may be monetary, and the user may be willing to pay, e.g., up to 5 dollars to lease the desired resources.
• the currency type need not be monetary, and the user of the user terminal 220 may be willing to offer use of its own resources in exchange for using the resources of other terminals.
• the user terminal 220 may determine that it has excess storage capacity, and may offer a certain number of megabytes of its local storage capacity for use by another terminal in exchange for additional network traffic bandwidth.
• service level agreements between an owner terminal and a user terminal may be traded as currency, and different values may be assigned to service level agreements for the same resource.
• a user terminal may own a first SLA to use a particular resource according to a first time schedule.
• the user terminal may exchange the first SLA for a second SLA for use of the same resource according to a second time schedule.
• Use of the resource during the second time schedule may be more valuable than use of the resource during the first time schedule.
• the user terminal may be required to offer additional payment, in view of the fact that the second SLA is more valuable than the first SLA.
• the user terminal may instead be offered payment for exchanging the first SLA for the second SLA.
• Such alternative exemplary embodiments are contemplated to be within the scope of the present disclosure.
• the user broker 222 may search for available resources as advertised by other terminals on the network 110. For example, the user broker 222 may obtain the information broadcast or unicast by the lease broker 212 at block 350 of FIG 3.
• the user broker 222 may check for a match between the resource requirements of the user terminal 210 and the available resources of an owner terminal 210 as advertised by the owner terminal's lease broker 212. If there is no match, the user broker 222 may return to block 430 and continue searching. If a match is obtained, the user broker 222 may proceed to block 450.
• the user broker 222 may initiate bidding for the resource.
• FIG 4 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 500 of an interaction between the lease broker 212 and the user broker 222 during the bidding process.
• the lease broker 212 waits for a bid from a user terminal to use the local resources 216 at the owner terminal 210.
• Block 510A may correspond, e.g., to block 360 described with reference to FIG 3.
• the user broker 222 initiates bidding by submitting a bid to the lease broker 212.
• blocks 520A and 520B Thereafter, at blocks 520A and 520B, the lease broker 212 and user broker 222 enter negotiation, and try to reach an agreement as to the price and other terms at which the local resource 216 will be leased to the user terminal 220.
• blocks 520A and 520B may include several exchanges of offers, counter-offers, etc., as in a typical negotiation between two parties. Further description of specific operations that may be performed at blocks 520A and 520B is given below with reference to FIGs 6 and 7.
• the owner terminal 210 begins to share its resource with the user terminal 220 at block 530A. Likewise, at block 530B, the user terminal 220 begins to use the resource provided by the owner terminal 210.
• FIG 6 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 600 of specific operations that may be performed by a lease broker 212 during the bid negotiation blocks 520A and 520B and the resource usage blocks 530A and 530B shown in FIG 5. Note FIG 6 is shown for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to limit the scope of the present disclosure to any particular operations to be performed during bid negotiation or resource usage.
• a service-level agreement is negotiated between the lease broker 212 and the user broker 222.
• the service level agreement may specify parameters such as minimum resource bandwidth guaranteed to be provided by the lease broker 212, latency guarantees, etc. Note for a single resource, different service level agreements may be offered according to different time schedules for use of that resource.
• a price for the agreed-upon service level is negotiated between the lease broker 212 and the user broker 222.
• the form of payment is negotiated. For example, if the payment is monetary, then credit card payment or bank account transfer details may be specified.
• the service levels of the payment resources may also be specified.
• the lease broker 212 verifies that payment has been made by the user broker 222. [0062] At block 650, the lease broker 212 grants access to the local resource 216 according to the service level as agreed upon at block 610.
• the lease broker 212 monitors the usage of its local resource 216 by the user terminal 216. As shown in FIG 2, the lease broker 212 may monitor whether the usage of the resource 216 exceeds an agreed-upon service level.
• the lease broker 212 may benchmark the actual amount of resources used by the user terminal 216.
• the lease broker 212 may adjust the payment required from the user terminal 216 in response to actual usage.
• FIG 7 illustrates an alternative exemplary embodiment of a scheme for establishing a payment agreement that may be performed by the lease broker 212 and the user broker 222 to lease the resources 216 of the owner terminal 210.
• the user broker 222 may check to make sure that it has sufficient funds available to lease the resources.
• the user broker 222 may set aside funds for such payment, without actually paying the lease broker 212.
• the user broker 222 may notify the lease broker 212 that the funds have been set aside.
• the lease broker 212 may verify that the amount set aside for payment by the user broker 222 is correct.
• the lease broker 212 may grant access to the resource 216 by the user terminal 220 in response to the verifying performed at block 73 OA.
• the user terminal 220 may obtain access to the resource 216.
• the user terminal 220 may start to use the resource 216.
• the user broker 222 may measure the quality of service based on the actual resource usage. This may be used to determine the actual payment due to the lease broker 212.
• the lease broker 212 may also verify the performance, and request payment for the actual resource usage at block 780A.
• the user broker 222 pays the amount owed for the actual resource usage.
• the lease broker 790B receives payment.
• FIG 7 illustrates at block 790B that payment is made after the service is performed, it will be appreciated that the scheme shown in FIG 7 may readily be modified to accommodate, e.g., payment prior to the service being performed. Such alternative exemplary embodiments are contemplated to be within the scope of the present disclosure.
• a single terminal may adopt the techniques described herein to simultaneously act as both an owner terminal for certain resources and as a user terminal for other resources, subject to the available communications bandwidth between the single terminal and the network 110.
• a first terminal may lease a storage medium from a second terminal on the network, while simultaneously the first terminal's network bandwidth may be leased to a third terminal on the network.
• a single terminal may lease resources from multiple owner terminals simultaneously, and likewise, may also lease resources to multiple user terminals simultaneously. Such exemplary embodiments are contemplated to be within the scope of the present disclosure.
• an SLA and corresponding compensation terms may be dynamically modified after bidding and negotiation for a resource has taken place. Such modification may be initiated by either the owner terminal or the user terminal. For example, if an owner terminal determines that it can no longer provide access to a given level of bandwidth or storage, etc., e.g., due to increased local demand for the resource, then the owner terminal may alert the user terminal that it desires to modify the negotiated SLA. Modification of the SLA may include adjustment of the payment due, and/or include refund of payment already made by the user terminal.
• Modification of the SLA may also specify new terms according to which the resource may be offered.
• a user terminal may request a modification of the SLA with the owner terminal to reflect the reduced need.
• modification of the SLA may be subject to, e.g., any conditions on modifying the SLA as originally agreed upon by the parties.
• FIG 8 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 800 of a system wherein an arbiter 820 is provided.
• the arbiter 820 may be an independent terminal from the owner terminal 810 and the user terminal 820, and may monitor whether or not the service level agreed upon is being maintained.
• the arbiter 820 may also be responsible for benchmarking the actual service offered and adjusting the payment accordingly.
• the arbiter 820 may further keep track of historical data of the service usage for later reference.
• the arbiter may be a third-party entity that oversees transactions conducted between an owner terminal and a user terminal.
• the arbiter may act, e.g., as a broker in settling payment based on the service level delivered compared to the service level offered.
• FIG 9 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 900 of a virtual data center according to the present disclosure.
• a first device 910 may store and retrieve File #1 912 and File #2 914 on a local storage medium 920 located in the first device 910. Also in
• the first device 910 may arrange to lease storage space in the devices 930, 940, and 950 for local use at the first device 910.
• a user terminal may store and access one or more of its files on one or more owner terminals accessible over the network.
• the first device 910 may store a File #3 952 on storage medium 951 of device 950, wherein File #3 is not locally stored on the storage medium 920 of device 910.
• the user terminal may do so for any number of reasons, e.g., it does not have the capacity to locally store the file, or it may be more cost-effective to store the file remotely, etc.
• a user terminal may store back-up versions of its files on one or more owner terminals from which the user terminals leases storage space.
• the first device 910 may access a backed-up version of its local File #1 912 as File #1 942 on storage medium 941 of device 940.
• back-up copies of one or more files belonging to the first device 910 may further be replicated and separately stored on multiple owner terminals throughout the network. This may advantageously increase the probability that the first device 910 will be able to access its back-up file at any time. For example, if one or more owner terminals storing the back-up file of the first device 910 is not available to the first device 910 at the moment, then the first device 910 may instead access its back-up file from any of the other owner terminals storing its back-up file.
• a single file belonging to a user terminal may be disassembled into individual sub-files, and separately stored on different owner terminals.
• the first device 910 may back up a portion File #2a 932 of File #2 914 on the storage medium 931 of device 930, and another portion File #2b 943 on the storage medium 941 of device 940.
• the disassembly may be performed by the user terminal, or it may be performed by a separate entity coupled to the user terminal, e.g., directly, or over the network.
• any aspects of the virtual data center separately described above may be provided in combination in a single system. Such exemplary embodiments are contemplated to be within the scope of the present disclosure.
• the compensation to devices 930, 940, and 950 for usage of their respective storage space may include monetary compensation charged as a function of the amount of storage space leased, and/or the amount of time for which the storage space is leased.
• the network 901 may be the Internet.
• the first device 910 may be, e.g., a mobile phone having limited local storage resources, while the devices 930, 940, and 950 may be personal computers or other equipment having available storage resources.
• the leasing devices may generally include any device with available storage space that is connected to the network, and also supports a platform for leasing its resources according to the techniques of the present disclosure.
• FIG 10 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 1000 of a network traffic bandwidth leasing scheme according to the present disclosure.
• a mobile phone 1010 establishes a first connection 1005 with the Internet 1001.
• the mobile phone 1010 may utilize a wireless data connection such as, e.g., W-CDMA, cdma2000, or any other wireless communications protocols known in the art.
• the first connection 1005 may support a maximum data transfer rate BWl .
• BWl maximum data transfer rate
• the mobile phone 1010 may lease network traffic bandwidth from other terminals.
• the mobile phone 1010 may also have access to a Bluetooth network 1020, and communicate with other devices 1030, 1040, 1050 over connections 1015, 1025, 1035 using the Bluetooth protocol.
• the mobile phone 1010 may discover that devices 1030 and 1040 are leasing Internet traffic bandwidth on a per-kilobyte basis. After successfully bidding for the bandwidth, the mobile phone 1010 additionally utilizes the second connection 1015 and third connection 1025 at rates of BW2 and BW3, respectively, to access the Internet.
• the devices 1030, 1040 may be other mobile phones accessing the data network using W-CDMA, cdma2000, or another wireless communications protocol.
• any or all of the devices 1030, 1040 may be, e.g., a personal computer accessing the Internet via an Ethernet connection.
• FIG 11 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 1100 of a distributed computing scheme according to the present disclosure.
• a main computing terminal 1 110 is charged with carrying out a computing task.
• the computing task may require a large computational bandwidth that may exceed the resources of the local CPU 1115 of the main computing terminal 1110.
• the main computing terminal 1110 may thus search for other terminals connected to the network 1101 that may be advertising their computational resources for lease.
• a mobile phone 1120, a mainframe computer 1130, and another personal computer 1140 have available computational resources CPU2 1125, CPU3 1135, and CPU4 1145 for lease. After determining the available computational bandwidth, and successfully bidding for the resources, the main computing terminal 1110 may distribute the
• the make-up of the leasing terminals may change over time.
• the mobile phone 1120 may leave the network 1101, while another mobile phone (not shown) with available computational resources may enter the network 1101.
• the main computing terminal 1110 may terminate its lease with the mobile phone 1120, and establish a new lease for the CPU of the newly present mobile phone.
• the leasing techniques of the present disclosure allow the computing task of the main computing terminal 1 110 to be dynamically distributed over multiple terminals as computational resources become available.
• a user terminal may further lease disk storage space and Internet bandwidth access from a plurality of owner terminals, in addition to computational resources. This may enable a multi-functional application wherein, e.g., a user terminal may direct owner terminals to download selected data from the Internet, analyze the downloaded data, store the analysis results, and provide an analysis report to the user terminal.
• a user terminal may direct owner terminals to download selected data from the Internet, analyze the downloaded data, store the analysis results, and provide an analysis report to the user terminal.
• Such exemplary embodiments wherein multiple resources are simultaneously leased and utilized are contemplated to be within the scope of the present disclosure.
• FIG 12 illustrates an exemplary embodiment 1200 of an application / OS leasing scheme according to the present disclosure.
• a first mobile phone 1210 runs applications on a first operating system (OS) 1212, e.g., an Android OS for a mobile phone developed by Google Inc.
• a second mobile phone 1220 runs applications on a second OS 1222, e.g., an iPhone OS or "OS X" for an iPhone developed by Apple Inc.
• OS operating system
• the first mobile phone 1210 may search for another terminal running an OS that does support the target application, e.g., the second mobile phone 1220.
• the connections to the network being the first mobile phone 1210 and second mobile phone 1220 has been omitted in FIG 12.
• the first mobile phone 1210 may lease the use of the second mobile phone 1220's OS 1222 to run the target application and retrieve the results of the executed target application from the second mobile phone 1220, according to the techniques of the present disclosure. For example, if the second mobile phone 1220 does not have the target application locally available, the second mobile phone 1220 may download the application from the first mobile phone 1210, or request the first mobile phone 1220 to indicate a location where the target application may be downloaded from. The second mobile phone 1220 may run the target application using the resources of the second mobile phone 1220, and provide the results of running the application to the first mobile phone 1210. The second mobile phone 1220 may perform such service for the first mobile phone 1210 according to a service level agreement specifying, e.g., the storage, bandwidth and/or CPU requirements, according to the techniques of the present disclosure.
• a service level agreement specifying, e.g., the storage, bandwidth and/or CPU requirements
• the first mobile phone 1210 may simply request the second mobile phone 1220 to run the application.
• the application module on the second mobile phone 1220 may serve as a remote interface to the first mobile phone 1210 for accessing the target application on the second phone.
• the application on the remote device may expose its application programming interface (API) to other devices on the network, and thereby allow the first phone's application to directly utilize the second phone's application from over the network.
• API application programming interface
• an intermediary application may be developed, e.g., by a third party, that provides an interface to the second phone's application to allow access to it over the network by, e.g., the first phone's application.
• the communication interface between a local application and a remote application may be based on, e.g., Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Remote Procedure Protocol (RPC), Adobe Flex, or any other standard protocol known in the art.
• SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
• RPC Remote Procedure Protocol
• Adobe Flex any other standard protocol known in the art.
• the first mobile phone 1210 may locally perform a search by accessing a first search website, while simultaneously offloading a search accessing a second search website to the second mobile phone 1220. After the search is completed, the second mobile phone 1220 may return the search results to the first mobile phone 1210. It will be appreciated that the results from both searches will be more extensive than the single search conducted by the first mobile phone 1210 using its own resources.
• FIG 13 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of an apparatus 250 for implementing either the owner terminal 210 or user terminal 220 described in FIG 2. Note the apparatus is shown for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to limit the scope of the present disclosure to any particular exemplary embodiments shown.
• a processor 251 is shown coupled to a memory 252.
• the memory 252 may store instructions for causing the processor 251 to implement an application module configured to run an application and a user broker module.
• the user broker module may be configured to determine a requirement set of the application module; identify at least one remote terminal having a resource to at least partially satisfy the requirement set of the application module; enable the application module to use the resource of the at least one remote terminal according to a service agreement; and arrange for the at least one remote terminal to be compensated based on the use of the resource.
• the memory 252 may store storing instructions for causing the processor 251 to implement a lease broker module configured to: determine terms on which a resource is available to be used by at least one remote terminal; advertise the terms to the at least one remote terminal; negotiate a service agreement with the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; enable the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; and arrange to be compensated by the at least one remote terminal based on the use of the resource.
• a lease broker module configured to: determine terms on which a resource is available to be used by at least one remote terminal; advertise the terms to the at least one remote terminal; negotiate a service agreement with the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; enable the at least one remote terminal to use the resource; and arrange to be compensated by the at least one remote terminal based on the use of the resource.
• DSP Digital Signal Processor
• ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
• FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array
• a general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine.
• a processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration.
• a software module may reside in Random Access Memory (RAM), flash memory, Read Only Memory (ROM), Electrically Programmable ROM (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM (EEPROM), registers, hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art.
• An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor such that the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium.
• the storage medium may be integral to the processor.
• the processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC.
• the ASIC may reside in a user terminal.
• the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in a user terminal.
• the functions described may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. If implemented in software, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium.
• Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another.
• a storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a computer.
• such computer- readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer.
• any connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium.
• the software is transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave
• the coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are included in the definition of medium.
• Disk and disc includes compact disc (CD), laser disc, optical disc, digital versatile disc (DVD), floppy disk and blu-ray disc where disks usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce data optically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

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• 2010
  • 2010-03-26 US US12/732,472 patent/US20110235592A1/en not_active Abandoned
• 2011
  • 2011-03-22 CN CN201710052955.5A patent/CN107124392A/zh active Pending
  • 2011-03-22 WO PCT/US2011/029442 patent/WO2011119615A1/en active Application Filing
  • 2011-03-22 EP EP11712119A patent/EP2553897A1/en not_active Withdrawn
  • 2011-03-22 JP JP2013502645A patent/JP2013527951A/ja active Pending
  • 2011-03-22 CN CN2011800161775A patent/CN102823221A/zh active Pending
• 2014
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